Human first. Leader second.
In that order, on purpose.
Dr. Jodi Blinco
Former campus president. Two-time founder. The woman who started as an enrollment counselor with no training, nearly failed at it, and then built a career on figuring out why.
I have been the woman in the box.
I went from enrollment counselor to campus president. I built a yoga studio and I lost it. I have had the title everyone wanted and felt like a stranger inside my own life. I earned the doctorate, wrote the books, took the stages, and I did a lot of it while performing a version of myself I thought people needed.
I started in this field with no training. I struggled, and I failed early. Years later I repeated the same pattern as a leader, just with a bigger title. That is where everything I teach comes from: the person has to come before the role, or the role eats the person.
What changed everything was not a strategy. It was doing the internal work I had been avoiding while being extremely productive.
The short version.
Inside higher education
From enrollment counselor to campus president, and years since consulting with colleges, universities, and ed-tech companies on enrollment strategy and team transformation.
Founder
Built and sold two companies, including The U School. Founded ZenLeader and Human First Press.
Doctorate
Research grounded in first-year student persistence: why people stay, and why they leave.
Three books
Inner Alchemy: Transforming Everyday Bullsh*t Into Sunshine Looking at Life Through the Lesson Lenses and The Most Expensive Conversation In Higher Ed.
Keynote speaker
Speaking on human-first leadership to institutions and conferences across the field. Host of the Leadership Therapy podcast and co-host of The EdUp Experience podcast.
Certified yoga instructor
Earned in the middle of all of it, and it turned out to matter more than the rest.
Why women, and why this work.
Because I have lived it. I started with no training and a goal I did not know how to hit, and I went on to run a campus and build two companies. I know what your Monday looks like, whatever building you walk into. I know the specific loneliness of being the woman everyone trusts and no one checks on.
The work I love most is sitting with a woman who is very accomplished and very tired, and watching her figure out that she is allowed to want more than this.
The fix is not working harder inside the box. It is deciding you are allowed to want a different one.
— Jodi 💜
